Failed Ransom
by ladybugbirdie42
Summary: Mokuba is kidnapped for like the millionth time. Fortunately for him, he's basically a pro at being kidnapped. Unfortunately for his captors, they have no idea what they're doing. Mokuba is sassy. His captors are stupid. Well, mostly. Except that Mokuba may have made a slight miscalculation about how much danger he's in.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Just a note about setting. I've always figured that the 4Kids version of Yugioh was set in America. My personal headcanon (I guess) is that 4Kids Domino City is somewhere in New York, and I'm pretty sure XME is also set in New York. Alternatively, I ask that you just suspend your disbelief for the sake of the story.**

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At this point, his reaction to getting jumped just a few minutes after exiting KaibaCorp was less fear and more, _'Great. This again.'_

He had been fully prepared to glare down every single one of his kidnappers as soon as the sack covering his head had been removed but instead found that it would hardly be worth the trouble.

He was riding in the back middle seat of a jeep (and hardly an impressive one at that), sandwiched between an absurdly large teenager and a rather puny (though being small himself, he couldn't really say much) one who smelled like he hadn't bathed in at least a month and then rolled around in garbage just for good measure. The car was being driven by a brunet with shoulder-length hair, and in the passenger seat sat a teen with pure white hair.

Overall, he had to say they really weren't threatening in the least.

And so Mokuba Kaiba had leaned back against the car seat, crossing his arms and making sure his expression clearly showed just how unimpressed and completely unafraid he was.

"So what did my brother do to you that made you feel the need to kidnap me?" He wasn't sure that that was why these strange people were kidnapping him, but he had been kidnapped as a form of revenge on his brother so many times that it seemed like a good place to start.

"Yer brother didn't do nothin'," the huge teen beside him said. He could've sworn he heard him mutter to himself in a much less convinced voice, "I think."

Mokuba was tempted to correct his grammar just to be annoying but decided against it, instead pressing, "Then why? Are you after the company?"

The puny one on the other side of him laughed. "Nah. Sounds like too much work, yo."

Okay? Well, that pretty much summed up the reasons he usually got kidnapped. Could they have kidnapped him because they actually wanted something from _him_ , not his brother? No, that couldn't be it. These people probably knew next to nothing about him save for the fact that he was Seto Kaiba's younger brother. They didn't know how much power he had, how much info about KaibaCorp's systems he held. Didn't know that he was the vice-president, that he was a technological genius. Just like everyone else, they thought he was just some kid who only had any worth because his older brother happened to be the most powerful man in the city.

And he intended to keep it that way.

But just in case, "Do you even know who I am?"

The two on either side of him gave him perplexed (he was willing to bet neither of them even knew what the word meant) looks, confused by the sudden question.

The albino sitting in the passenger seat wheeled around, actually looking slightly alarmed as he took in Mokuba's appearance—the unruly hair, worn jeans, ratty sneakers, and striped shirt that completely belied the idea of him being a rich kid, let alone the vice-president of a multibillion dollar company. "Wait, you _are_ rich, right?"

Mokuba almost laughed out loud. These people weren't even sure about their target? He wondered if it were possible that if he claimed he wasn't, they would just take him back. Maybe. But he wasn't done yet.

He shrugged. "I live in a mansion. Is that what this is about? Money? 'Cuz I don't have any to give you. Seto's the one with all the money, so if that's what you want, you should be talking to him, not me."

The white-haired teen smirked. "Nice try, kid. We're kidnapping you so that we can force your brother to give us the money."

Ah, so they understood that much. Well, he had to give them props for that.

He tried to look like he was actually worried about his situation. "How much money?"

"A thousand dollars!" the big one beside him immediately exclaimed.

The shrimpy one on his other side followed with, "We're gonna be rich, yo!"

Mokuba blinked, subtly raising an eyebrow. A thousand dollars? That's it? In all honesty, he was offended that they thought he was worth that little. Heck, he'd pay them two thousand dollars if they turned around and took him back.

But then again, Seto had been spending a concerning amount of time in the office lately. And this would be a good way to get him out of it.

He sagged back against the seat, hoping to look like he had given up and accepted being the prisoner. A part of himself wondered if he was going crazy. That was it? He was just going to _let_ himself be kidnapped?

And why not, he reasoned. It wasn't as if he was in any immediate danger, and if anything went wrong, he didn't think it'd be too difficult to get away. Besides, Seto would be looking for him. He'd be fine.

He fell into his typical routine for whenever he got kidnapped.

Step one: know the hierarchy of your captors.

He glanced to his right. The big guy with the Mohawk was obviously the muscle. What he didn't have in brains, he certainly made up for in brawn. Mokuba wouldn't stand a chance against him in a physical fight, but, to be fair, there were few people he did stand a chance against. That's why he tended to rely on smarts.

And it would be so easy to outwit him, to manipulate him.

No, he wouldn't be a problem unless Mokuba ticked him off or he received orders from the leader – whom Mokuba guessed was probably one of the two in the front.

He wasn't yet entirely sure what the position of the teen sitting on the other side of him was, but he didn't seem too bright either, and he was far less of a threat than the blond.

If there were any of them that he needed to watch out for, it was the two up front. They were far from geniuses, but they were probably smarter (or at least more competent) than the two sitting beside him. The albino struck him as a mischievous person, so he was likely cunning. The driver he couldn't tell much about just yet, but he had caught him glancing back at him several times via the rearview mirror. He seemed to be studying him, trying to figure him out.

It seemed the driver was the one he was really going to have to worry about.


	2. Chapter 2

"Here we are! Home sweet home," the brunet beside him, Toad(?) apparently (weird, but fitting, he thought; he figured it was either a strange nickname or some sort of codename), announced as the car pulled into a dirt driveway.

' _The Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding House,'_ the sign read.

"This is where you _live_?" Mokuba asked. The others seemed to take offense to that, thinking he was looking down on them, but Lance didn't miss the note of sadness in his voice.

' _What is up with this kid?'_ Lance was already beginning to regret letting them—mainly Pietro—talk him into this.

They all got out of the car and walked to the house. Mokuba was watched the whole short trip, but other than that, no further move was made to restrain him. Not that it mattered since he wasn't planning on going anywhere soon, anyway, but he added that fact to his growing mental list of strikes against them as kidnappers.

The interior of the house was a mess. There was no other way to describe it. It was unkempt and honestly looked like it would fall apart at any given moment.

His kidnappers stood around awkwardly, exchanging glances amongst one another.

"Sooo," Toad began, "What now?"

None of them really had an answer for that, so they just continued to stand there.

Mokuba sighed and rolled his eyes. "Well, where are you going to keep me?" he prompted in an attempt to, as strange as it sounded, help his kidnappers hold him captive.

They all gave him confused looks.

"Um, right here?" Fred answered, though it sounded like he was asking Mokuba for confirmation.

"This spot exactly?" Mokuba clarified, one eyebrow raised.

"Of course not, idiot," Pietro broke in. "He means we're keeping you in this house."

"In the entire house?"

"Yes! Why is this so difficult to understand?!"

"So you're not going to keep me locked in any room or anything like that. You're just going to let me wander around the entire house."

"We don't really have a room we can give entirely to you," Toad explained.

"There's Mystique's old room," Fred volunteered.

"Okay, it's settled. You can have Mystique's old room," Pietro announced proudly as if he was the one who had come up with the idea.

"Who's Mystique?" Mokuba whispered to Lance. Even though he figured Lance was the most dangerous, he also felt that he was the most likely to give him an actual answer.

"The lady who's supposed to be paying the bills, but she ditched us, so now we gotta find the money ourselves." The answer was angry and given in a much louder volume than the one Mokuba had used to pose the question.

The others, hearing the obvious anger in his voice, backed away slightly and seemed to almost brace themselves. For what, Mokuba wasn't sure, but their reactions made him nervous.

Nothing really happened, as far as Mokuba could tell, though he almost thought for a minute there that the ground was trembling.

He was pretty sure he had found their motivation, though.

"Have you guys ever considered, I don't know, getting a job?"

His kidnappers collectively turned towards him. "What."

He shrugged. "Well, I just thought that instead of trying to kidnap some kid and using the ransom to pay your bills maybe you should actually try to _get a job_."

His kidnappers looked at each other, seemingly having a silent conversation amongst themselves via glances, shrugs, and other vague gestures, before turning back to him and saying, "Nah."

"Besides, who'd hire us?" Todd said, and, yeah, okay, he kinda had a point cuz Mokuba sure wouldn't.

"Okay, fair point," he conceded, "but you thought kidnapping me was a good idea because…?"

"We watched a movie about it," Fred volunteered.

So they kidnapped him because they had seen a movie about kidnapping someone and holding them for ransom. Oh, this just kept getting better and better. He really was dealing with a bunch of clueless amateurs, wasn't he?

"Yeah, and how'd that work out for the kidnappers in the movie, huh?"

"Not great," Pietro admitted. "But we're going to do it better."

"Well, you're certainly off to a great start, then."


End file.
